The invention relates to an assembly of a needle and a fluid supply device, the needle being provided with needle coupling means, the supply device being provided with a nozzle, the needle coupling means comprising a standardized construction with standardized dimensions according to the Luer standard.
Such an assembly is known from practice and is used for administering a medicine to a patient. This involves the medicine being introduced, with the aid of the fluid supply device, via the needle, into an administering location of the patient. The supply device can, for instance, comprise a syringe which can be coupled directly with the nozzle to the needle coupling means of the needle. Such a syringe can also be indirectly brought into fluid communication with the needle coupling means, with the aid of, for instance, a fluid tube or hose which is also provided with a nozzle. In this last manner, also a fluid reservoir such as a drip can be brought in fluid communication with the needle. The known assembly can be used in combination with other means which can be used optionally, such as for instance suction needles, filters, regulating means such as taps, and connecting means arranged to bring various fluid reservoirs into fluid communication with one needle. To that end, these means are also provided with the standardized construction with standardized dimensions according to the Luer standard, so that they can cooperate mutually exchangeably with the needle coupling means. According to the above-mentioned Luer standard, the coupling means comprise conical fittings which are provided with a 6% cone as described in the NEN-ISO 594-1 standard.
The use of the known assembly comprises different operations. First, the supply device is filled with fluid containing, for instance, a medicine. The filling is generally done by a pharmacist or a pharmacist's assistant in a pharmacy. Subsequently, the medicine can be administered, which is performed, for instance, in a sterile surgery or operating theatre of a hospital. Administration is generally performed by specially trained staff, such as doctors or nurses. For the purpose of administering the medicine, the needle is inserted into a predetermined administering location of the patient. Then, the supply device is brought into fluid communication with this needle via the needle coupling means. Finally, fluid with the medicine can be introduced into the patient at the desired location by operating the supply device. An administering location can for instance be an intramuscular, intravenous or intraneural, i.e. at least an intrathecal or intradural, location which corresponds to administration into a muscle, a vein or the nervous system, respectively. Intraneural administration can, for instance, be carried out intrathecally using, generally, a lumbar puncture needle.
A drawback of this known assembly is that it can be used for any administering location. Hence, the situation may arise that a medicine destined to be introduced in a first administering location of a patient is erroneously introduced into another administering location. Such an error can have grave, even fatal consequences. One of the most notorious administering errors comprises the intraneural administration of the medicine vincristine to be administered intravenously. A child suffering from leukemia can be subjected to a chemotherapeutic treatment, for which, according to a certain treatment protocol, the medicine vincristine has to be administered on the same day as a second medicine, to be administered intraneurally. Then, it happens that the two different medicines are confused, so that vincristine is administered intraneurally, and the child may die. The confusion of intraneurally and intravenously to be administered medicines may already have happened during the filling of the fluid supply device, or may happen in the surgery during administration.
A proposal for a solution to this problem of confusion is known from an article of R. A. Anderson et al., published in the journal “Medical and Pediatric Oncology” 1999, pages 401 and 402, issue 32. There, the coupling means of a syringe is provided with a detachable marking element to indicate that the syringe contains a medicine which may, during administration, only be administered intraneurally. A drawback of this proposal is that different pharmacists, doctors and/or nurses of different pharmacies or hospitals, respectively, may, in practice, have come to different agreements regarding the meaning of such a marking. A different person may, for instance, use the marking to indicate that the syringe contains a medicine destined for non-intraneural administration.
According to the same article, a second solution is to provide both the needle coupling means of the needle and the nozzle of the syringe with a non-standardized, particular shape or size, such that cooperation with, respectively, a nozzle or needle coupling means having a standardized construction and dimensions according to the Luer standard, is impossible. As a result, during administration, the confusion of two medicines is no longer possible, at least when the different syringes have been correctly filled with the different medicines. This solution has the drawback that means to be used optionally which have a standardized construction and dimensions according to the Luer standard, such as suction needles, filters and the like, cannot cooperate with these adapted needle coupling means and nozzles. For that reason, before use, such standardized treatment means have to be replaced with new treatment means with adapted coupling constructions, which entails relatively high replacement costs.
The present invention contemplates solving the above-mentioned drawbacks of the assembly while maintaining its advantages. Hence, the invention provides an assembly with which the risk that, in use, a medicine destined for non-intraneural administration is mistakenly administered intrathecally via the needle, is very small. Further, the needle and administration device according to the invention can be used in combination with a number of other treatment means, standardized according to the Luer standard.